


Darkness is Just a Shadow Overgrown

by MinervaFan



Series: The Sisters Spellman [5]
Category: Chilling Adventures of Sabrina (TV 2018)
Genre: Dark Baptism, Gen, Ritual, doubts
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-10-01
Updated: 2019-10-01
Packaged: 2020-11-08 23:01:56
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,797
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20843465
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/MinervaFan/pseuds/MinervaFan
Summary: Three days and three nights before the beginning of her sixteenth year, Hilda Spellman prepares for the biggest decision of her life. And she's not quite sure she is able to do what is expected of her.





	Darkness is Just a Shadow Overgrown

**Author's Note:**

> Mild Trigger Warning: I suspect Hilda was always a little more sensitive than the rest of her family. I can't imagine the idea of "growing up" in the Church of Night would have appealed to her that much. No overt non-con in this story, but definitely enough fear of what is expected of her once she is baptized that some readers might find it uncomfortable.

It never occurs to Hilda to go to their parents. The fact that she perceives as cruel what all other witches take in stride means that Hilda will find no sympathy from them. Even Edward, who in her fifteen years has coddled and spoiled her, would find her reactions absurd.

A witch survives on her wits and her strength, on her commitment to the Path of Night. A witch moves unafraid through the darkness and shuns the Path of Light.

Hilda has read her catechism and learned it well, although perhaps not as thoroughly and deeply as Zelda before her. 

It is three nights and three days before the turn of her sixteenth year, and Hilda will sign her name in the Book as Zelda and Edward did before her, and as their parents before them, and their parents before, on and on as far back as memory whispered, perhaps all the way back to Lilith herself.

Spellmans did not abstain, and Spellmans did not walk the Path of Light.

Hilda knew her duty. Zelda never let her forget. Zelda whispered it into her ears at night, taunting and graphic descriptions of what would be expected of her as a woman in the coven. No more childish games for you, Sister, she would mock, brushing her hands suggestively over Hilda’s breasts as they curved under the warm gown she wore against the February cold. You will be a true witch when you’ve signed your name.

Hilda would pull her pillow over her head, burrow into the cold linen covering her bed as she tried not to hear Zelda’s words.

Bodies covered in sweat.

Hands grasping, probing.

Breath coming hard, heart-pounding, blood on fire in the veins.

Opening, stretching, pressure, passion, pain, blood and bodily fluids.

The duty of a woman. The lust of a witch.

After all, she would say as Hilda tried to sleep in the room they still shared when Zelda came home from Academy. You’re a Spellman. Lust is in your blood.

*

She escapes to the fields as soon as the sun rises. Two nights and three days. Two more sunrises and three more sunsets.

Blood spilled, oaths taken.

Hilda is barefoot, despite the cold air. There has been a warm spell, relative to the normal weather, and she relishes the bite of cold dirt against her feet. She is more barefoot than not, too much a child of the rocky paths and overgrown fields and hidden streams to fear for any tenderness or cuts. 

It has been unusually dry this season. The winter fields are usually seas of mud, slush, and snow. Today, she can cross easily towards the edge of the forest. In a few weeks, when spring arrives in earnest, this soil will be tilled and turned and seeded.

In a few weeks, so too shall Hilda be tilled and turned and seeded, no longer uncultivated. No longer a child. 

A true witch.

Her foot cracks on a twig. She leans down to retrieve it, turning the dry wood in her hands.

A single spark would send this entire forest ablaze, she thinks absently.

That would be lovely to watch, wouldn’t it?

*

One sunrise left. One sunset more. 

Hilda cannot sleep. She does not want to sleep. She does not like the dreams she’s been having.

She hears the scuttling of tiny feet on the headboard behind her. “Which one are you?” she whispers into the night. Clover. It’s sweet Clover. 

Zelda called her spoiled and foolish when her familiars came, two, three, four of them. Spiders! What foolishness! Why have several tiny, useless familiars when she could have a fine hound like Tom?

“Don’t you listen to her, darlings,” Hilda whispered. “Tiny things can be very useful, and just as beautiful.”

“Are you talking to those silly creatures, Hildegard?” 

She did not mean to wake Zelda. Of all the things she did not want at this moment, waking her elder sister was the top of the list. “Sorry,” she responded in hushed tones. “Being quiet now.”

She’d hoped her sister would just go to sleep and leave her to deal with the tossing birds in her stomach, but fate was not having any of it. Zelda, in a fit of uncharacteristic sororal fervor, pulled back her cover, dancing across the icy floor to tuck into bed under the covers with Hilda.

“I couldn’t sleep, either,” Zelda said. Her voice, usually calm and demure, was almost playfully conspiratorial. “Tomorrow night, baby sister. Tomorrow night, you will sign the Dark Lord’s Book.” She put her arm around Hilda’s shoulders, pulling her into a fierce hug. “I know you’re nervous. But you don’t have to be. It’s wonderful, being a full witch. It’s wonderful, having your full powers.” She squeezed Hilda. “You’ll see. You’ll see.”

Hilda rested her head against Zelda’s shoulder. Her golden braid fell, meeting Zelda’s auburn one above the older witch’s heart. She’d longed for this, she realized. She’d missed it. Cuddling together against the cold. Giggling in the night, telling scary stories and dreaming of far-off adventures.

When she signed the Dark Lord’s Book, would she become like Zelda? Would she become grown-up and serious, obsessed with passion and carnal delights, too proud and hearty to gather wildflowers in the fields in spring or swim in the cool stream on hot summer afternoons?

Hilda had lost Zelda when she signed the Book.

Would she lose herself, too, tomorrow night at the Witching Hour?

She pushed the thought away, burrowing into Zelda’s unexpected comfort, distracted slightly as sweet Clover swung on a gossamer thread over the bed, happily building her tiny web.

*

Sunset.

Sunset, and her mother is fussing with Hilda’s hair.

The day was spent in quiet contemplation. Hilda, alone in Father’s great study, reading the Unholy Bible before the fire--it had turned cold again, an unexpected front swooping down like a hawk from Canada early in the day.

The Scripture danced like roasting beetles on the page for most of the day, incomprehensible. The fire became her friend, a fellow conspirator. 

They didn’t burn witches in the Dark Times. They hung them.

Burning….dry, winter forests, sudden gusts of frigid air. 

She could set the whole thing ablaze, run until her feet bled, run until she came to the ocean or the mountains or the desert. She knew enough to do a simple glamour. She could hop a freighter to South America, work as a deckhand amongst mortals who knew nothing of witches and rituals.

She’d tried to focus on the Calamities, Unholy Curses they’d been taught by rote as tiny children.  _ Cursed are the arrogant, for they shall tend the fires of hell. Cursed are those who covet, for they shall reap the bones of their enemies. Cursed are the lustful; for they shall feast on the flesh of the innocent. _

Zelda came in with the dress she would wear. It was black, sheer, and cut far too low for Hilda’s comfort. She stood there, her pale skin high contrast against the black shift she would strip down to in front of the coven, and allowed her mother and sister to dress her like a doll. Hands above her head, she slipped into the gown. As Zelda fastened the ties at her back, Mother twisted her golden curls atop her head, securing them with onyx hairpins handed down from Great-Great-Grandmother Flavia who seduced them off a Roman Centurian she then bewitched into misdirecting his legion away from her village.

She watched their reflections in the mirror, Zelda buzzing with pride and excitement, Mother’s face somber and contemplative. When she saw herself in the glass, however, Hilda saw a stranger. Skin powdered and pale, lips painted scarlet, hair piled intricately atop her head. The gown squeezed tight around her waist, shaping and lifting her youthful frame into something she didn’t recognize. The neckline plunged deeply, and Hilda knew what was being advertised.

As her mother droned on about the ritual, what was expected, Hilda felt herself floating off, drifting towards the cold February moon until there was nothing left but a body in a dress, primping in front of a looking glass.

*

The Witching Hour.

She stood before the stone altar clad only in her shift. The night was bitterly cold, even though fires surrounded the circle.

Eyes, expectant.

Breath, hot and ready for blood.

Her blood.

Hilda was not afraid of blood. She was raised on a farm, surrounded by animals raised for slaughter. She had killed and cleaned everything from fish to chickens to goats. Her hands were far from bloodless.

But this blood, the blood cut from her body, the blood dripped on the page.

She thought, stupidly, randomly, about how Edward used to tease her that she’d been found under a cabbage leaf, left by the fae and taken in by Mother and Father out of pity. Or, as Zelda would say because they needed a blonde child to complete the set.

She could feel the eyes burning on her exposed skin. Soon she would be expected to join in rituals, not as a silly child, but as an adult witch. 

The words Father Wormwood incanted were garbled as they passed from her ears to her brain, scrambled by cold and fear and pain and the urgent desire to put her clothes back on. She knew them by heart, thanks to Zelda and Mother. She knew what was expected of her.

What was expected of every witch, whether she wanted it or not…

To sign herself over to the Dark Lord.

The weight of it was crushing her, bearing down on her, killing her slowly with each uttered word from the ancient priest’s mouth. She could feel her family behind her, expectant, proud. She could feel the coven gathered, welcoming another witch into the fold, another black soul to help rebuild what had been destroyed only a generation or two before.

The quill was in her hand, dipped in the blood that had flowed from her veins onto the pages of the ancient book. Hilda hesitated, glancing furtively around, unable to recognize anyone in the firelight, afraid to turn and look at her family behind her.

As she turned back to the book, it caught her eye. Just a flash of white in endless darkness.

She was startled. It was too early in the season. It was far too cold.

But there it was. Just at the edge of the clearing, plain as the full moon. A single moonflower blossom, perfectly formed, shimmering against the darkness of the forest. 

Hilda took a deep breath and signed the book.

She stepped on to the Path of Night, knowing that at the edge of every dark wood there was the possibility of light.

The End

  
  



End file.
